For how long

A long long time ago, or that is how it feels, I was new to the idea of Otherkin and found myself considering many simple questions regarding it as a whole.
Things like:
How common is this?
Why haven't I heard about it before?
Mental disorder?
So on so forth. I found myself trying to disprove the possibility. There is one thing that made me change my approach more than anything else. Something that made me consider that I was merely assuming things when it came to how common/uncommon or "new" it is.
It was a simple school project on ancient Greece. I was flipping through a site on the internet, looking up information on ancient Greek scientists. Amongst mathematicians, inventors of a crude vending machine, and the like, I found phylosophers that believed in reincarnation. One interested me more than most.

Empedocles believed he had lived before, not just as various humans but also as a fish, and a bush. Before all that he believed that he had originally been a immortal being, a "daimôn", who was cast down into mortal life as punishment for his crimes.

Quote:There is a decree of necessity, ratified long ago by gods, eternal and sealed by broad oaths, that whenever one in error, from fear, defiles his own limbs, having by his error made false the oath he swore - daimôns to whom life long-lasting is apportioned – he wanders from the blessed ones for three-times countless years, being born throughout the time as all kinds of mortal forms, exchanging one hard way of life for another. For the force of air pursues him into the sea, and sea spits him out onto earth's surface, earth casts him in the rays of blazing sun, and sun into the eddies of air; one takes him from another, and all abhor him. I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer, having put my trust in raving Strife.

I read that piece of text and blinked and read it again. People had had these beliefs, one way or another, for much longer than I had guessed. Otherkin was merely a new word, not a new philosophy. (Trust the Greek to beat us to it.)
This is the thing that made me join internet communities and start exploring the possibility that what I'd always know was something that could be "right" in some manner. And it is something I want to share with you all. An insight into a person who believed himself to be kin, long before the word even came up.

Source links:
http://www.in2greece.com/english/history...docles.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles
http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/empedocl.htm

I found this to be very interresting when i get the time' i am going to read as much of what you are talking about as i can ' but in any case good work.

How fascinating! Thanks so much for sharing that with us, Freetha!

~ Ashaiel

*Nod* Most interesting. Otherkin are not new, it's just that we're not tolerated, usually. I'm just surprised that there was someone that actually came out and said as such way back when. Ancient people were much harsher than today's, I understand.

This is a bit of information I was looking for a month or two ago. I have known people who would be categorize as "otherkin", but never used the term (and probably would never because they didn't believe in labeling). I figured that "otherkin" was just a new term for an old belief but could never really find anything about it. I'd bet in a few year the term otherkin will die out and a new word will surface.

Silyon Wrote:*Nod* Most interesting. Otherkin are not new, it's just that we're not tolerated, usually. I'm just surprised that there was someone that actually came out and said as such way back when. Ancient people were much harsher than today's, I understand.

Such a blanket statement ignores cultural differences of different places throughout history. The fact that there were people that came out and said such, back then, and such notations of them existed throughout time shows that some cultures did not find such statements as being too intolerable. Especially worth note are cultures that's majority believed/believes in some form of reincarnation. I've never experienced intolerance for my identity in modern society, but then, it is not something that I use to entirely define my Self.

But said cultures who believe in reincarnation would suffer harsh punishment if the person claimed to be an immortal being, or something akin to a god. I think thats what Silyon meant.

Freetha Wrote:I read that piece of text and blinked and read it again. People had had these beliefs, one way or another, for much longer than I had guessed. Otherkin was merely a new word, not a new philosophy. (Trust the Greek to beat us to it.)
This is the thing that made me join internet communities and start exploring the possibility that what I'd always know was something that could be "right" in some manner. And it is something I want to share with you all. An insight into a person who believed himself to be kin, long before the word even came up.

of course they had these beliefs as now we have them too althought now its time where science is the one who dictate what can be said as possible or as true or as real thats why lots of people would rather say that we are freaks, dreamers or mental ill then that its possible, but in the time of Greek (philosophers) there was another mood therefor people didnt thought in the same way as now.

isn't reincarnation a form of immortality?

nope immortality is to live without death that means even if you want die you cant(something enshure that you are alive or something in this way), reincarantion is a life with death and because your mind and soul should be immortal in a way that only your will determines if you will be or will not be reincarnate/substain your form/be alive/exist as yourself.